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In mathematics, an integral is the continuous analog of a sum, which is used to calculate areas, volumes, and their generalizations.Integration, the process of computing an integral, is one of the two fundamental operations of calculus, [a] the other being differentiation.
The term "numerical integration" first appears in 1915 in the publication A Course in Interpolation and Numeric Integration for the Mathematical Laboratory by David Gibb. [2] "Quadrature" is a historical mathematical term that means calculating area. Quadrature problems have served as one of the main sources of mathematical analysis.
In integral calculus, Euler's formula for complex numbers may be used to evaluate integrals involving trigonometric functions. Using Euler's formula, any trigonometric function may be written in terms of complex exponential functions, namely e i x {\displaystyle e^{ix}} and e − i x {\displaystyle e^{-ix}} and then integrated.
A different technique, which goes back to Laplace (1812), [3] is the following. Let = =. Since the limits on s as y → ±∞ depend on the sign of x, it simplifies the calculation to use the fact that e −x 2 is an even function, and, therefore, the integral over all real numbers is just twice the integral from zero to infinity.
Just as the definite integral of a positive function of one variable represents the area of the region between the graph of the function and the x-axis, the double integral of a positive function of two variables represents the volume of the region between the surface defined by the function (on the three-dimensional Cartesian plane where z = f(x, y)) and the plane which contains its domain. [1]
To calculate this integral, one uses the function = ( +) and the branch of the logarithm corresponding to −π < arg z ≤ π. We will calculate the integral of f(z) along the keyhole contour shown at right. As it turns out this integral is a multiple of the initial integral that we wish to calculate and by the Cauchy residue theorem we have
This visualization also explains why integration by parts may help find the integral of an inverse function f −1 (x) when the integral of the function f(x) is known. Indeed, the functions x ( y ) and y ( x ) are inverses, and the integral ∫ x dy may be calculated as above from knowing the integral ∫ y dx .
To compute the integral, we set n to its value and use the reduction formula to express it in terms of the (n – 1) or (n – 2) integral. The lower index integral can be used to calculate the higher index ones; the process is continued repeatedly until we reach a point where the function to be integrated can be computed, usually when its index is 0 or 1.